Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Good morning!

Just back from an early morning meeting, and feeling an energy I haven’t felt in days. I have paying work to do, but I also feel like blogging, which I haven’t felt in a while. This, therefore, is an open thread while I process news and other data.

The only thing irritating me right now is that I woke up at 3 am with a wonderful idea for a post — and couldn’t remember it by the time I woke up for real at 6 this morning. I remind me of that old Steve Martin routine where he says that he always hates it when, after confessing to having forgotten a thought, someone responds by saying, “Oh, well, it can’t have been very important anyway.” Martin’s shtick is that he’ll then start hugging that insensitive person person (or shaking his hand), only to “remember” what he’d forgotten: “Oh, I remember! I’m radioactive.”

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Oh, my. Buyer’s remorse is beginning to set in at the most unlikely places, such as The New Republic.

(1) Marty Peretz just called the President “a clinical narcissist” and asked in his closing sentence “I know that the president believes himself a good man. My nervy query to him is: ‘Does he believe America to be a good country?'” Welcome to the party, Marty.

(2) Another correspondent called Obama’s Honduran policy “a mistake in search of a rationale.”

(3) In the article “The Ghosts of Clinton Haunt the Climate Debate, Too”, the author acknowledges, matter-of-factly, that the Senate killed Kyoto 97-0. A shocking admission that Bush didn’t do it!

The other badly aging juveniles like Jonathan Chait are still true believers.

Why does The New Republic matter? Not on substantive grounds (it ceased being a producer of intelligent liberalism more than a decade ago), but as a bellwether for young policy wonks and the metrosexual crowd.

The book looks great. Now for a question: Why should I have bought it, since I am already a very strong supporter of Israel? At best, Gilder’s book will only furnish new reasons and strengthen connections for what I already believe. Preaching to the choir, in so many words. What I need is an intellectually honest, good faith work that is skeptical if not hostile to Israeli policy. Anybody have any sources?

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